Pigeon Forge: Coming Home

Our little mini get away was SO nice! It was so great to spend time with mommie. I forgot to mention it on "day 2" but I was cracking up at one point at Dollywood...

Mommie was in a companion wheelchair (that we brought with us) and Rhyan was riding in her lap. Well, Dollywood is pretty hilly! So I was pushing them both up a hill and we got to the top and I kept thinking "oh, good Lord, please dont let me slip!!! please help me to hold on!"
I'm telling you, they would have likely ran over someone and killed them or themselves (or both!) with the  speed they would have gained going downhill!! HA! Luckily, there were no "mishaps" and all were safe!

Ok, going home day!

Last year, Shlaine and I took Mommie to Pigeon Forge for her 80th birthday (and to Dollywood) and on the way home, we stopped for the "hot now" sign at krispy kreme. YUM. Lets just say that 3 girls can do some damage to a box of hot now's :-)

Turns out, Mommie and I like traditions! :-) So, Mommie, Rhyan and I went through the drive through and got a dozen... Dont worry, we shared half with Jonathan and Mam (in the other car). But the 3 of us for real each ate two! Yep. My little 3 year old ate 2 krispy kremes! She's got good taste :-) (it was a treat).

On our drive back, Mommie and I had some great conversation and she shared with me a good many stories from when she and Daddy first were married. Pretty neat and quite interesting!
Rhyan, however, was NOT happy about our talking. She was sleepy (girl did NOT get enough sleep in this quick 3 day trip) and was GRUMPY! She kept saying "PLEASE STOP TALKING!" hahah. Thing is, Mommie is half deaf so I couldnt whisper and Mommie is just not a quiet talker. Poor Rhyan ;-)

When we got into Franklin, NC (half way), we stopped at McDonalds and grabbed some lunch for on the way and handed Mommie off to Mama and Jonathan for the rest of the ride. Rhyan and I had an important appointment...

Baby Avery's Dedication!!!

I drove like a mad woman to try to be on time (and have time to change clothes) but it just didnt happen. We got there in time, but no time to change clothes. So, we joined in wearing jeans :-( But I was SO happy to get to be there! (Btw, a HUGE shout out to my sweet friend Ashlyn and Josh for keeping Mack for us!).

We shared a sweet time with our family celebrating little Avery! I have NO pics, though, so this cute one will just have to do!

What a great way to end a great, memorable weekend!

OK! I HACKED SOME PICS! (haha... from Liz)

 Ok, this is awful BUT, its the only pics of the 3 of us together! (Rhyan was in a "no pictures" phase)

 The proud parents with David Walters, the pastor at The Vine.

Babies, Babies, EVERYWHERE!

As I said in my post on the 4th of July, Liz's water broke! We got the call from them at 6am but her water had actually broken at 3:30am. I was THRILLED!!! Liz felt pretty strongly about trying to go into labor naturally (Dr Pohl is the "induction king" haha) and had reservations about being induced. Whatever a mom hopes for, I hope that they are able to see happen. 

We stayed at the mountain house until after the kids naps and then headed home.We left all our stuff up there because we planned on going back for at least a couple of days. My mom was sweet enough to stay at  our house with the kids so that we could go and be with Liz and Jason.

We got to the hospital around 8pm with a plate of food for Jason (who was not allowed to eat it in front of his laboring wife!)

Long story short, Liz was at 1cm from the time she arrived at the hospital at 5am till 10pm when they finally declared that she was at 4cm!! YAY!! 4cm is kind of a landmark because things tend to move quickly past 4cm (or so i'm told). So we continued to hang out, hope and pray that things would move more quickly and try to keep her distracted from the pain (the epidural was wearing off).

At 2am, Dr Pohl came and checked Liz again. And delivered the news that she was STILL at 4cm and that due to the lack of progression and the affect the labor was having on Baby Avery's heart rate, she needed to have a C-Section.

I could just tell that Liz was heartbroken. And I was heartbroken for her. She had labored for right at 24 hours and had hoped for a vaginal birth the entire pregnancy. To see her hopes shattered was just so sad! And on the other hand, the waiting was about to be over. We were soon going to meet this precious baby!!!

After all of the FAST prep, they then made Liz wait about 45 minutes because the O.R. was in use! Talk about anti-climatic! haha! The Poole and Ford families hung out and chatted for a looooong time. We wondered what was taking so long but tried not to worry.

Turns out, Liz's epidural wasnt as effective as it should have been and they had to knock her out completely for the delivery. I mean, could anything else have gone wrong?! :-( So the reason it took so long for Jason to come update us is that he was staying with Avery... Liz didnt even get to meet her until she was about an hour old!

But when she did, she met THIS precious gift!!!

Avery Elizabeth Ford

Born 3:39am

8lbs 1oz

Jeff and I headed on home for a couple hours of sleep and then got up, fed the kids and headed to the hospital to let them meet their new cousin!!!

Rhyan was instantly in LOVE!

Jeff was so excited about all the pictures :-)

While we were visiting Avery, we took a stroll down the hall to meet baby Kendall Jane! One of my long time friends, Lindsay (and Cody) had just welcomed their third baby to the family and we were stoked to see what a GIRL version of a Robertson looked like ;-) She had ROCKIN hair!!!

Back for more visits to see baby Avery over the next few days (when we got back from sky valley).

We are THRILLED to welcome Avery Elizabeth into our family and hearts. We are quite smitten :-)

Congratulations to Jason and Liz AND Cody and Lindsay on their precious additions!!

Sky Valley 4th

Last year, we started what I hope to be a tradition of spending the 4th of July in Sky Valley at my in-law's place. I love it! Its a much quieter way to spend the 4th. I do miss seeing fireworks with my family, as was our previous tradition, but i in NO way miss all the traffic to get to the fireworks and back home.

 This year, Sky Valley (the association) decided to do the fireworks on the 3rd instead of the 4th. Several cities actually did that this year. I'm not sure why? Maybe because people have to go back to work on the 5th? Anyways, that meant that i needed to try to move my last patient of the day (which, thankfully, he was very accommodating!) so we could head on out a little after 4pm. We got to the house around 6:30, enjoyed a nice dinner and let the kids play for a bit while we unpacked. During this play time, Mack started TAKING STEPS!!! He was standing at the (massive) fireplace and I wondered if i could get him to try to take a couple of steps towards me (previously he had only taken one step at a time, max) for my in-laws to see. Well, low and behold, he took 3 steps! And LAUGHED the whole time! It was precious!!! When he got to me and I picked him up, he screamed (his not so nice way of letting me know he's unhappy :-( ) so i put him back down and he continued to take steps, fall, laugh, get back up, take more steps, fall, laugh, etc...

He was having a BLAST!! We were all so proud!

I went ahead and got Mack in bed around 7:30. Rhyan was already asking every 5 minutes "we need to go see the fireworks!". They didnt start till about 9:00. It was a long 1.5 hours. lol. The thing is, the fireworks are just down in the valley... walking distance. We do drive, but you dont have to. Point being, theres really no reason to get down there way early!

I volunteered to stay back with Mack (everyone actually volunteered, but i INSISTED... i was worn OUT from packing so late the night before and working all day) and Ronni, Andy and Jeff headed down with Rhyan. 

The fireworks lasted all of about 10 minutes. Which was great. Because Rhyan is 3 and normally goes to bed at 8pm ;-) She loved them and talked about them for days!!!

The next morning, Jeff came in the room at around 7am and said that Jason and Liz (his brother and wife) had called and Liz's WATER BROKE!!! She was due with baby Avery July 15th so we were all a little surprised that she was making her debut early! But we were  THRILLED and EXCITED!!! Jeff said he'd never seen me get out of bed so fast! haha!!! But Liz was only dialated to a one at 6am, so we knew we had a bit of time, so we decided to play it by ear and just stick around and enjoy the day until we got a call saying progress was being made! (sky valley is less than 2 hours from home)

 Jeff went on a bike ride in the morning and Rhyan and I met him down at the main street for the Independence Day Parade!! Yall, it was almost laughable :-) It was all volunteer and was just so cute! It was very  low key. We took a blanket and some snacks and just walked down to a little shady spot and enjoyed the show! It was definitely our kind of parade. :-) Not crowded. Not Hot. Nice!

HILARIOUS!!

The most exciting thing for Rhyan was the dogs and the candy :-) Girl LOVES her some candy!!!

He's so handsome :-)

We loved the "volunteer" dog's in the parade!

On the way back to the house, Rhyan spotted some FROGS! That girl loves frogs. (eww)

Then, we headed on back to the house for some redneck pool fun!

 

 And of course I had to get a pic of Mack doing what he does best: screaming. 

The. Most. Demanding. Baby. Ever. :-)

Good thing he's scrumptious!

Naps followed and  then we headed HOME to wait to meet baby AVERY!!!!

That deserves a post of its own :-)